A Family’s Struggle, a Nation’s Shame

The fliers were left on bulletin boards and windshields all over Main Street in Alhambra, and a small ad ran in the Penny Saver too.

“YARD SALE FOR CANCER PATIENT.”

When I called the phone number on the flier, Hortensia Tamayo told me she was tearing through her house on Sherwood Avenue, looking for things to sell this weekend so she could help with her big sister’s rent and medical bills.

“She beat breast cancer and lymphatic cancer at the age of 50, going through chemotherapy even while she was a student at USC,” Tamayo, 32, said of her sister, Marina Tamayo Higgins. “She just graduated from the nursing school, and now it looks like she’s got bone cancer. And she has no health insurance.”

I was reminded of a column I did 20 years ago in San Jose. The newspaper ran two small classified ads in which a man and woman were selling their gold wedding rings, and each ad had the same phone number.

When I called to ask about it, the couple told me their toddler son was seriously ill and the health insurance had run out. They had just lugged their dining room set into the front driveway and that was for sale too.

You would think that in 20 years, we might have made some progress in fixing a problem that brings shame to the United States.

Fat chance.

After two decades of political gum-flapping and national hand-wringing, the problem is only worse, with 40 million uninsured Americans. Even the insured are up in arms, driven mad by an aggravatingly inept system that is more about profiteering than delivering medicine and saving lives.

“What else can we do?” Hortensia Tamayo responded when I asked about the family’s yard sale this weekend.

Hortensia, a social worker, said her house is a mess now that she has torn every room apart, gathering up clothing, picture frames, books, purses, jewelry, candles, shelving, shoes.

“Some of it is new stuff I haven’t even used yet, but I think I can do without,” she said.

On Thursday morning, Marina and several family members visited the QueensCare Family Clinic on York Boulevard in Eagle Rock. A family acquaintance had suggested Marina might be able to find help there.

Marina, with short-cropped, reddish hair and signs of weariness showing around her eyes, filled out several forms and sat in the waiting room with two sisters, her daughter and her mother, all of them holding their breath. It was only a few months ago that Marina finally got a clean bill of health after a year of fighting cancer. But after a recent checkup, the news was not good.

“I’ve got growths on my pelvis and my ninth thoracic vertebra,” she said with a mix of fear, resignation and hope.

Maybe there’s still a chance it’s not cancer, I said.

She smiled appreciatively, but she said she knows too much about oncology and about her own body to be optimistic.

“I’ve got the splitting headaches again,” Marina said, “like someone is slicing through my head with a knife. Just like last time. I think the cancer has metastasized to the bone.”

The family, with roots in Boyle Heights, is buoyed by Marina’s obstinacy and determination. She still tries to do for herself and insisted on driving to Thursday’s appointment, even though she was bedridden just the other day.

She’s been fighting back with an organic, macrobiotic diet and herbal treatments, the only remedies she can afford. Her late husband, a Vietnam vet who suffered from the effects of Agent Orange, died a few years ago, and Marina lives on a small military check and whatever help her four daughters and other family can lend.

“My whole life,” Hortensia said, “I can remember her talking about wanting to be a nurse.”

It took seven years for Marina to complete the nursing program -- including a final year in which she was undergoing chemotherapy -- because she worked while going to school.

After graduating from USC last spring, Marina is only a board test away from realizing her dream. But she can’t get help from the industry she wants to serve.

She had health insurance through USC while she was a student. But it lapsed once she completed her studies, and now no one will cover her because she’s sick.

“I’ve got a preexisting condition,” she said, repeating the explanation she’s heard over and over. “They treat you like you’ve got leprosy. You’ve got cancer? It’s tough toenails. I’ll tell you one thing. When I get through this, I will not sit quietly. I will do whatever I have to do about this problem.”

After she was called in to see a doctor, Marina’s family sat in the busy waiting room talking -- and at times joking, to keep from going crazy -- about the sad state of healthcare in the world’s richest nation. Marina’s 72-year-old mother, Hortensia Flavia Tamayo, runs a small jewelry store in Los Angeles with her husband, and said the family went without healthcare for years before they could afford Kaiser.

“We’re all willing to pitch in and help pay for a healthcare plan for my sister,” said the younger Hortensia, who has been calling one foundation and public agency after another, begging for help. “It’s outrageous. We’re willing to buy insurance for her, and we can’t.”

“It just means more stress for my mother,” said Priscilla, 24. “I think it just makes her sicker. She’s sick and can’t get treatment? Come on!”

When Marina returned to the waiting room after seeing a doctor, she told her family there was good news and bad.

The bad news was that QueensCare could take her on as a patient only if she had cervical cancer or recurring breast cancer. Her disappointed little sister, Hortensia, cracked that maybe they should pray for a return of the breast cancer.

The good news was that QueensCare could get her a referral to County-USC Medical Center for some tests, but there was no guarantee she would be able to get timely treatment there. Medi-Cal was a possibility, Marina said, but it could take two or three months to qualify.

“That’s too late,” the younger Hortensia said.

Marina responded with a sigh, and that same look of fear, resignation and hope.

(The yard sale will be held Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 3010 Sherwood Ave. in Alhambra. Anyone wishing to buy or donate goods can drop by or call Hortensia at (626) 272-9478 or her sister Cecilia at (323) 262-4768.)

Steve Lopez writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at steve.lopez@latimes.com